


sure

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8099179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: There's a ring.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shihadchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/gifts).



It starts as a peaceful afternoon in the sleepy end of summer, before John goes back to New York, before Sam starts over in another new city. They are enjoying themselves. They trained in the morning, they’re going to get dinner later, while they have time. 

Another year. It’s always another year, another city, another apartment, new streets to learn, new people, a new system. Another year, every year, starting his whole life over — almost. Everything is new each fall, except for John.

Loving Johnny, being loved, wanting each other, needing each other, being bad at saying these things to each other — that is eternal, unchanging. He loves Johnny, and Johnny loves him. They don’t talk about it very often, but it’s true, and the sex is great, and what else is there to talk about? They could talk about the future, the way other people talk about the future, the way couples talk about the future, the way real couples make plans. But they don’t. 

Sam doesn’t have a future to plan for. His future gets decided every summer though circumstances largely outside of his control. Every fall another audition for another future he won’t see, every summer starting over from scratch. Another glimpse into a life he won’t build, then on to another new adventure.

Johnny doesn’t have a future to plan for either because he is the chosen one. Anointed, admired, adored. His future does not need to be planned for; destiny is waiting. He steps forward and the world bows down before him. If Sam didn’t love John so much he’d say it wasn’t fair.

But whatever. It doesn’t need to be fair. This is their life. It is quiet and fragile and theirs. Sam will not risk breaking it by asking questions that don’t have answers. He will fall asleep basking in the warmth of Johnny’s body, which he will miss in the fall. This year’s future is somewhere that gets cold in the fall. He prepares by that future by storing the memories of warmth, of summer, of Johnny’s body, and Johnny’s smile, and Johnny’s hand in his.

What they have can be enough.

Then Johnny has to ruin everything. 

Sam is lying in bed, thinking about putting clothes on again, feeling very satisfied with himself. John walks out of the bathroom, freshly showered, a towel wrapped around his waist. He’s beautiful. Sam doesn’t say anything. He just stares. John’s muscles glisten. Water drips from his hair down the curves of his back.

Jonny’s going to get dressed, which is terrible, but inevitable. Sam has made peace with this. Johnny can’t be naked all the time, that would be too distracting.

John turns away from his dresser. He has something in his hands, a small box. Sam’s seen boxes like that before. He doesn’t know why John would have something like that in his underwear drawer.

John’s holding this box, and he’s still just wearing a towel, and his hair’s still wet. The air conditioner is blasting, he must be cold. Sam doesn’t know why John would have a box like that, a small jewelry box, a _ring box._ He doesn’t want to know.

John is staring at him. Sam wishes he wouldn’t. He knows his hair looks really stupid after sex. Not that John cares, but _he cares,_ and John knows that. He doesn’t know why Johnny’s holding a box like that, and staring at him like he’s something serious to solve.

“Sammy,” John says, sounding choked up, serious, like the words are hard to say.

“Is that really?” Sam asks.

Johnny nods.

“Johnny…” Sam doesn’t know what to say.

“What? Is it so ridiculous that I love you, and want to spend the rest of my life with you?”

Yes. 

Sam walks out. He can’t deal with this. He can’t listen to a proposal. 

He picks his boxers off the floor, puts them on in the hallway, doesn’t look back, goes downstairs. If he actually wants to go anywhere he needs to find some pants. He could look in the laundry room, where their clothes all tumble together for summer, a few more weeks of that before packing up and the great division, where Sam sees how many too broad t-shirts he can steal without Johnny noticing. He doesn’t want to put on pants. He doesn’t want to leave. This is stupid.

He was happy, ten minutes ago, lying in bed, sex-sore, thinking about what to have for dinner. Then Johnny had to propose. And now he has to answer. And then they’ll have to talk about it. And that sounds bad.

Fuck.

He needs to get out of the house. He needs to leave. He’s leaving.

He steps out the back door to stand on the patio. He sits at the table. The sun’s beating down on him. He’s only wearing boxers, his shoulders are going to get burnt if he stays outside. He isn’t going anywhere. This is their home.

He stares at his hands folded on top of the table. He picks at his nails, his calluses. No ring.

It’s too bright, too muggy. He gets tired of squinting and closes his eyes. He loses track of time. This moment could last forever. They could never go past this. Time could start moving backwards. They could pretend nothing happened. They could start the afternoon all over again, like Sam starts every season, with a blank slate. No ring, no cut off questions, nothing to talk about. 

He feels out of time, untethered, but really, it can’t be more than ten minutes before the back door opens and Johnny comes out to sit on the bench next to him. It’s automatic, he starts to lean close, but he stops himself. That wouldn’t help.

It might make him feel better, but fuck that. If he wanted to feel better he could have said yes in the first place.

Instead he’s stuck here, trying to talk it out. They’re going to have to talk to get past it.

“It’s not like saying yes would change anything,” he says. “You’ll still be in New York, and I’ll be in Columbus, and we aren’t going to tell people right now, we aren’t going wear rings, so why make it into a thing?” He doesn’t get why it’s necessary.

“Because I love you?” John says, cause he says things like that sometimes, which can be sweet, but doesn’t usually help much. Sam wants to shake him.

“That’s a shitty reason, you could love me without asking.”

“There was an opportunity to make a romantic gesture—”

Sam cuts him off. “If you were going for romance, you fucked it up, because taking something out of your sock drawer on a random Wednesday afternoon with no build up isn’t romantic.”

“There was an opportunity to make a romantic gesture, so I was waiting for the right moment to make a romantic gesture, but then I saw the box in my drawer, and I saw you lying in our bed, and I remembered how much I love you, and remembered how bad we’ve been about romantic gestures historically, and decided to go for it.”

“That might have been a mistake.”

“I don’t think so,” John says. He puts his hand on Sam’s knee. John has great hands: big, warm, excellent, Sam really likes them. There’s something between his knee and the palm of John’s hand.

John takes his hand away, leaving a blue velvet ring box sitting on Sam’s knee. Sam didn’t want this.

He isn’t ready.

“We’re not going to tell anyone now, but in a couple years…” John says. “My contract’s coming up, and I’ll have options, and we can… I’m not sure, but we should talk about it.”

They could talk about it. They could get married, sure. But it doesn’t matter what they talk about, what they decide. It doesn’t come down to what they decide.

“In a couple years you’ll have options, but I won’t. You’ll be able to choose where you want to play, but I won’t, and you can’t just chose to be where I am, because odds are, next year, I won’t be there.” He doesn’t get to stay. Something new every fall. He’s accepted this. He’s almost alright with it. “So sure, we could talk about the future, but all that means is looking at how you get to choose what happens to you, and I don’t, which isn’t my favorite conversation to have.”

He doesn’t get to pick what’s next for him. Not really. Not unless he’s willing to stop, give up, settle down, whatever you want to call it. Which he isn’t. Not yet. And John should know this. John shouldn’t make him say this.

Because he isn’t there yet, but he isn’t sure how far off that day is, when he’s ready to pack it in and say _yes, let’s get married, let’s have kids, you play hockey, I’ll stay at home, we’ll make this work._ He isn’t there yet, but sometimes he daydreams about it. He thinks it could make him happy, really happy, deeply satisfied. It doesn’t sound like a bad life at all. If that’s what giving up gets him, then damn, giving up looks pretty sweet. But not yet.

Johnny should know that.

Not yet.

“You didn’t even get down on one knee,” Sam complains, not really hurt, that isn’t the real issue.

“I would’ve. If you’d given me enough time, instead of just…”

Yeah, Sam ran out of there pretty fast. Maybe if he’d stayed it would have been nice. If he hadn’t bolted, just sat up in bed and let John ask, given John the time to get down on one knee and pop the question, it might have all worked out. Instead of running he could’ve said yes, and they could’ve kissed, and they could be in the middle of round two right now, instead of sitting on the back porch, kind of miserable, probably getting sunburnt.

He doesn’t always make great choices. He doesn’t always know what to do. It isn’t obvious for him, he isn’t Johnny.

The ring box is still on his knee.

It’s just sitting there, taunting him.

He picks it up. It’s a heavy box, solid, not some cardboard crap. It snaps open smoothly. The inside is lined with silky fabric, and in the middle, there it is, a ring nestled inside, ready to change everything. 

It isn’t a showy ring. John knows him too well for that. John knows him better than anyone. It’s solid, a dark grey metal, silver or steel or titanium, who knows. He’s sure John could tell him, that John put thought into durability and comfort and sustainability, not just picking something because it looked cool. He’s sure there’s a story behind this ring.

Maybe he’ll let John tell it to him. Not today, but they’ll get there. 

Maybe he should just do it? He doesn’t get to make a lot of decisions, but he could do this.

“Will you marry me?” Sam asks, not looking John in the eye, staring at the ring sitting in a box on his palm.

“I would love to marry you,” John says.

“Great. Then we’ll have to do that someday.”

John laughs, and Sam looks at him, and smiles, and doesn’t cry. He takes the ring out, sets the box back on his knee, and grabs John’s hand. He shoves the ring on John’s finger.

“Here. Now we’re engaged.”

“You didn’t get down on one knee either.”

“You’re right, we’re really bad at romantic moments. I figured it was better to just go for it.”

John shakes his head, but he’s smiling, he looks so happy, like Sam made him so happy, like this is a beautiful moment in their relationship, a beautiful moment in the life they’ve made together. Which it is. Strangely. Here they are, well before Sam expected it.

John has a ring on his finger, and it looks like it belongs on his hand. John has great hands, and he’s wearing a ring because Sam shoved it on him, because they’re going to get married someday.

“That ring looks good on you,” Sam says, because that’s easier to say than any of the other things rattling through his head.

“It was supposed to be for you.”

“We can get me another. They can match.”

“That’s kind of dorky.”

“Your face is kind of dorky,” Sam says.

John is smiling at him, the way John always smiles at him. They’re going to get married some day. That’s been true for a very long time, the logical culmination of their friendship, waiting for them before they knew that’s what this was. It’s just a little bit more official now, with a ring, and a story they’re going to have to polish up before telling their parents.

This day, some version of this argument, is going to get smoothed into something bigger. It’s going to get turned into a comfortable half-lie that they’ll tell their children. The children that they’ll have one day, after they get married. It won’t be soon, but that’s going to happen. Not now.

Another fall, another new future to try on. In the next couple years John will get to make some choices about his future, and Sam will get to make a different set of choices, and they’ll muddle along. It might be hard, but they’ll have each other. They’ll figure it out. They’re going to get married some day. They’re going to be alright.


End file.
